I'm quoting myself from a post I put in the Andrew Robinson forum. May I do that, mods? or do I have to do a link?
 
>>Narratives about actual people who walked the earth are tricky. If the protagonist is someone like Brad Pitt or Dwight D. Eisenhower, people who are interested in the possibility of learning more about Brad or Dwight will read it. If the protagonist is someone most people have never heard of but that person DID (not talked about, but actually did) something extraordinary, people would want to read the story to track the events that led up to that formidable feat. A story about a person who most people never heard of and who never did anything particularly special will only be of interest to the people who actually knew that person. It does not have mass appeal.
 
Long ago, Kevin Eastman, the TMNT creator, told me that for years fans had been asking him at conventions why he didn't write a comic book about all the events that led to the creation of his empire. To which his answer always was (I'm paraphrasing here), "The only people who would understand or even be interested in that minutea would be the people who appeared as characters in that comic. Even (actually especially) other comic book industry professionals would find the whole thing a crushing bore."
 
What are your thoughts about writing a non-fiction story about a virtually (in the old school sense) unknown person?<<

wtf

" @Roxanne Starr: so you are asking if it's ok for you to make a thread that is basically you repeating your own comment from another thread? then why is it linked to the Roxanne Starr page? or is that what your comment is about....  "

O.K. ...
 
Now that my philosophical concerns have been satisfied...

"What are your thoughts about writing a non-fiction story about a virtually (in the old school sense) unknown person?"